By Ben Kerrigan-
A scientist of doom is advising the government to extend the end date of Covid-19 restrictions.
Prof Ravi Gupta, from the University of Cambridge, said the Indian variant had caused “exponential growth”, although cases remained relatively low.
Professor Gupta called for the end date of Covid-19 restrictions in England on 21 June to be postponed.
The UK government is keeping an eye on the data, and will make a final decision on June 14.
A number of scientists have called for the date to be postponed by a few weeks, due to a rise in infections apparently caused by the Indian variant.
As BBC Radio 4’s Today programme whether the UK was already in a third wave of infections, Prof Gupta said: “Yes, there has been exponential growth in the number of the new cases and at least three-quarters of them are the new (Indian) variant.
“Of course the numbers of cases are relatively low at the moment – all waves start with low numbers of cases that grumble in the background and then become explosive, so the key here is that what we are seeing here is the signs of an early wave.”
However, he said the number of people who have been vaccinated in the UK meant this wave would probably take longer to emerge than previous ones.
“There may be a false sense of security for some time, and that’s our concern.”
Prof Gupta – a member of the government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag) – said ending restrictions in June should be delayed “by a few weeks whilst we gather more intelligence”.
“If you look at the costs and benefits of getting it wrong, I think it is heavily in favour of delay, so I think that’s the key thing,” he added.
Another leading scientific adviser to the government, Prof Adam Finn, also urged caution over the 21 June date for easing restrictions.
“I think it’s unfortunate that everyone’s got this particular date in their head, because really what we need to do is understand how things are going and adjust accordingly,” he told ITV’s Good Morning Britain.
“This time around, we should be cautious, wait to see what’s happening, and then let everyone free, if you like, once we know for sure that that’s safe and that we can do that without having another round of lockdowns.”
However, Mr Eustice told the BBC the government had to take things “one step at a time”.
“We can’t rule anything out. We know this has been a difficult pandemic, a dynamic situation. We have to make that judgment a couple of weeks before.
“It will only be by then that we will see the impact of the latest easement we made on 17 May.”